You Can Find Your Own Way Out
by ValidEntry
Summary: The fantasy she created is the reality she wants to build.


_Make_ your fantasies a reality. So her therapist reiterated to her innumerable times after the accident. Not surprisingly, that phrase only caused her even more anxiety. First she fixated on the emphasis he placed on the word _make_. Her therapist was obviously laboring under the false assumption that he could conjure the statement into being by force, as if all it took was that extra oomph on the _make _that would break the dam. And all her fantasies would then swirl into the void, overtake her, raise her to the surface, and allow her to emerge into her new reality. _Make_ your fantasies a reality. She called bullshit.

Why, too, did he always refer to it as fantasies? She was a pragmatic girl. A stickler for semantics. Didn't he mean dreams? _Make _your dreams a reality? Fantasies conjured images of slender arms that held her to where she never felt suffocated or bruised. Fantasies were putting words into that mouth and letting herself hear only enough to make her give in to the overwhelming need to crush her own against them. Fantasies were of _her_.

Her therapist just shrugged her off when she debated it with him. She could call it what she wanted: Fantasies, dreams, goals, aspirations, etc. The important part, he stressed, was in the action. _Make _them a reality.

A year and a half later, she was about to test the hypothesis out. She had to admit, this was much like the way she conjured it into being inside the depths of her mind: Students wandering about, hazed over by thoughts of theorems, the rules of grammar, possible weekend hook-ups. The campus a type of beacon emblazoned with the Yale logo seen from seemingly every direction the eye turned.

Up ahead was her destination. The dam behind which she would either _make_ her new reality or drown forever in the fantasies (and this one was a fantasy, really) that had occupied her to the point of obsession. She was giddy to the point of nervousness. Or maybe it was the opposite. Her emotions were in tangles and she wondered if the girl she was about to encounter again would help her loosen the knots or further tie her to them.

Her prospects did not look promising when she first glanced down at Quinn Fabray. That one look downward caused the contents of her stomach to dip dangerously lower; maybe trying to mimic the movement of her eyes. She was used to having to tilt her head just a shade upward to meet the hazel swirls that so defined Quinn, so this shift – though she had mentally prepared for it – threw everything slightly off kilter.

She breathed deeply. Took in the sight of Quinn in a wheelchair. _Make _them a reality, she thought. But the panic that seized her felt more real to her than anything had in her whole life. What she thought of as fantasy did not compute with what she was seeing. The first crack in the dam formed and she took an unconscious step backward.

"Don't worry, Rachel, I've learned to control this thing. I'm not going to run over your foot or anything."

"N-no, it's…it's not that. I…"

Quinn smiled. But it wasn't an all-together pretty one. She wouldn't exactly refer to it as grim. But it was close. The second crack spilt across the dam.

Quinn wheeled herself closer to Rachel. "I only agreed to this get-together with you because it was inevitable that we'd see each other this weekend. What with me presenting a paper on the same panel as you. Who knew that Rachel Berry had such an interest in biophysics?"

She squeezed her hands tightly together. _Make _them a reality.

"I have many interests, Quinn, of which I would think you'd be aware, considering how long we have known each other and…"

Quinn held up a warning finger. She stopped talking. It was truly amazing, the power that Quinn Fabray still maintained over her.

"Drop the act, please. Your paper was one of the last to come in. Well after the initial submissions were posted online. You saw mine. You wrote one of your own – or had someone do it for you," Quinn arched her brow at her, "and now we find ourselves together again."

Her therapist had advised her to think carefully, speak with great care, and allow Quinn to take initial control of the conversation. But she could feel the cracks deepen, widen, splinter. And she was never any good at holding back.

"I needed to see you! You would never let me visit after the accident! You didn't come back to school…"

Quinn cut her off again, ripped another layer away from the dam. "You always brought Finn with you when you came to see me."

"H-he's my…my husband. And he was worried about you as well. He-he'll always care about you."

"It was blatantly apparent how very much you both care about me when you went ahead with the wedding even after hearing about my accident."

She tried to lessen the vertigo gripping at her by repeating her mantra: _Make _them a reality. _Make _them a reality.

"We…we were under the impression that the accident was a minor one. I mean, that's what the police told Mr. Schue. And Finn kept saying it was now or never."

"And Rachel Berry, excuse me, Rachel _Hudson _will always be the one to choose the now over the never."

It was as if water was pouring into her very soul, chilling her to the core. The dam had spilt in half.

"Please, please, Quinn, I want to…"

"Stop begging, Rachel! What you want is forgiveness, friendship, a return to normalcy. You can't have those things, I'm afraid."

She could tell she was about to start blathering. To let some of that metaphorical water pour out of her mouth and maybe float over to Quinn enough to keep Quinn's attention and have the girl stop interrupting her.

_Make _them a reality.

'Quinn, if I could only tell you how hard this has been for me!" She stopped talking this time of her own accord. What a stupid statement to make to Quinn! Why must she always make it seem as if the world turned itself around over her issues, problems, fantasies?

She held her breath. _Make _them a reality.

Quinn gave her that strange smile again. "I'm going to leave now, Rachel. It was a mistake for you to come here. And, anyway, I've got to meet up with…someone."

"Is it Santana? Are you…"

Quinn's words were the harshest she'd ever heard from the girl. "Santana is _not_ a topic of discussion!"

"It's just that Brittany…"

"Do you honestly think that Brittany has no idea what happened between me and Santana?"

The dam let go with a full torrent.

"Quinn, what can I do? How can I make it better?"

Quinn was silent. She waited. _Make _them a reality. She was barely holding on.

"Give me your wedding ring."

She blanched. "Pardon me?"

"Wanna make it all better, Rachel? Give me your fucking wedding ring. You shouldn't be married."

"Giving you the ring won't make the marriage go away."

"True. But I'm asking for it anyway." Quinn held out her hand.

Stunned, drowning, Rachel took off her ring and placed it softly – damn near reverentially – in Quinn's open palm.

She wasn't sure what was happening. This wasn't part of the plan, of the fantasy. This was like some alternate reality where she was acting out the part of Quinn Fabray's overeager puppet.

Quinn turned from her and she found herself unable to follow. Desperately, she whispered under her breath: _Make _them a reality.

Still, her legs held firm, as solid as the dam she'd so painstakingly built inside her mind had so recently been. She could not move. Neither on nor forward.

She watched as Santana approached Quinn from the opposite end of the dining hall. How had she not seen her before? Lurking from the shadows, perhaps, ready at any moment to whisk Quinn away from her should things go horribly wrong.

She remained rooted to the spot as Quinn tossed the ring at Santana, who caught it with an ease and grace that was impossible not to admire.

Santana never gazed in her direction. Never offered her a wave. Never even acknowledged her presence.

And, suddenly, she was very much aware that the only fantasies she could _make _a reality were none of them at all.


End file.
